Ships Are Sailing Out to Sea
by littlelindentree
Summary: After a moment, she looked up. Her face was puffy, her brown eyes rimmed an irritated red. Classic signs of a broken heart. She glowered at him." Takes place after 4x04 "Stay". Tim/Julie.


Tim stared blankly at the backlit plastic menu board at the Alamo Freeze, trying to decide what he wanted for dinner.

It was a Wednesday, and he'd been driving around since getting off work. He wasn't feeling up to dealing with Billy and Mindy, but he didn't want to spend the evening alone in his trailer, or worse, in Becky's company. After a while, he succumbed to the growling of his stomach and pulled into the parking lot of the Alamo Freeze. The kid working at the counter was helping the guy two people ahead of him. He was 16 or so, and was wearing the same paper hat that Smash and Seven used to sport when they worked there.

It was strange to look at the kid behind the counter and think, "Damn, he looks young."

Tim let his eyes wander away, and they landed on the girl standing in front of him in line. He took in the long, straight blond hair, the loose blue t-shirt and tight, dark jeans, and the battered Chucks on her feet. They were posed toes-out in an unconscious dancer's stance.

Julie Taylor was standing right in front of him, and he hadn't even noticed.

"Welcome to Alamo Freeze. What can I get you?"

"I'll get a cheeseburger, no onions, with fries and a chocolate milkshake," Julie said, digging change out of her pocket. The boy punched the order into the till, which clanged metallically as it accepted Julie's coins.

"Thanks," she said to the boy's back, as he turned to get her food.

"Thought you were a vegetarian or a vegan or whatever," Tim said, nodding at the food passed across the counter to her. Julie turned suddenly and gaped at him, open-mouthed in surprise.

"Yeah, well," she replied after a pause, shrugging and turning away.

"Your fries are gonna be another minute," the boy said.

"Okay," Julie replied. She stepped aside to let Tim order. After passing his cash to the boy, he leaned a hip on the counter and turned to her.

"Heard about Matty," he said casually. She nodded and looked down, her long hair hiding her eyes. After a moment, she looked up. Her face was puffy, her brown eyes rimmed an irritated red. Classic signs of a broken heart. She glowered at him.

"I saw Lyla at the funeral," Julie countered, sticking her chin out and raising a haughty eyebrow at him. Her arms were crossed over her chest. "You get to visit at all before she went back to college?"

Tim smiled. "A bit, yeah."

"That's_ nice_," she said, turning away again and drumming her purple-tipped fingernails impatiently against her arm. Her prickly response made Tim feel bad immediately; he hadn't meant to tease her. He wasn't sure what he'd meant.

"Not really," Tim offered. "She still left anyway."

He was interrupted by the return of the boy, who brought Julie her fries and took Tim's order. Julie didn't leave with her food, she just stood next to the counter, watching Tim count out his change.

"At least she said goodbye, I assume," Julie said bitterly. "Matt's mom finally got an email from him last week. He's in Chicago."

"That's where he got into school last year, right?" Tim asked as he grabbed his bag of food and started heading for the door. Julie followed.

"Yeah, he's trying to see if they'll let him in next semester, I guess," Julie said, taking a sip of her drink.

Tim held the door open for Julie, and they walked out into the mild evening. It had started getting dark earlier, and the lights were on in the parking lot. Swarms of moths swirled under the lights high above them. Looking down at Julie's bowed head as she walked away from him to her car, Tim thought about the night he and Seven had gone hunting, about how conflicted Matt had been about Julie and everything else. Tim remembered how sad it had made him to know that even a couple who seemed as perfectly matched and happy as Matt and Jules couldn't always make it work.

It was sad to know that not even that much was certain.

"Hey Jules," Tim called, stopping in the middle of the lot. Julie stopped and turned back, her face illuminated by the harsh fluorescent glow of the lights above.

"Yeah?"

"You know he loved you, right?"

Julie stared at him for a beat. She looked down at the drink in her hand, her mouth quirking into a wry half-smile.

"I know he loved me. That just wasn't the point, in the end."

Tim nodded, watching her closely. Julie looked different to him now. Once she'd been a quiet girl who sat across the Taylors' dinner table and seemed too young to take on the task of dating the Panthers' starting quarterback. Later she'd been his friend, in a way, and then Matt's girlfriend.

Now, with her slumped shoulders and her sad eyes, her broken heart worn fiercely on her sleeve, she seemed like the only person around who might understand what he was feeling; this horrible, empty sense of everyone departing, of nothing being permanent, of always, always, always being left behind in favour of greener pastures.

"You wanna go somewhere or something?" Tim asked, before he could stop himself. Loneliness always seemed to make him do stupid things.

But Julie didn't look surprised or amused or any of the things he might have expected. Instead, she merely smiled that unhappy smile again, and shook her head.

"Maybe some other time," she replied, but Tim didn't get the feeling that it was a brush off. Something in her smile said that she meant it.

Tim nodded again and turned to go to his truck.

"Hey, Tim?"

This time it was Tim who turned to look back. Julie was still standing rooted to the spot.

"Thank you," she said, almost too softly for him to hear.

He nodded. "Anytime, Jules."

She turned and got into her car, and Tim watched as she pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street, disappearing into the night.

He considered calling her, maybe hanging out sometime, just as friends; it didn't have to be anything else. He didn't want anything else right now.

But then he thought about what Matt had said, about Julie applying to colleges all over the country. Colleges anywhere but in Texas.

Tim decided then not to call Julie Taylor. He didn't want to one day stand there and watch her, too, leave him behind.


End file.
